


Like Emptiness In Harmony

by Haberdasher



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Archivist Jonathan Sims, Canon Divergence - Episode: e160 The Eye Opens (The Magnus Archives), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: e160 The Eye Opens (The Magnus Archives), Gen, Jon can only read statements, Light Angst, Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Spoilers for Episode: e160 The Eye Opens (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: AU of MAG 160. When Jon wakes up after that statement, he finds that he’s changed just as the world around him has.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 29
Kudos: 157





	Like Emptiness In Harmony

**Author's Note:**

> _But all my words come back to me_   
>  _In shades of mediocrity  
>  Like emptiness in harmony  
> I need someone to comfort me..._

Jon came back to himself... no, that wasn’t right; Jon’s self was far too nebulous a concept for that. How many weeks, months, years had passed since he’d truly been himself, free of influence by eldritch powers? Had he even truly been himself before he’d joined the Magnus Institute, or had he been controlled by the Web back then, too? Would he even recognize his true self, his _human_ self, anymore? (Were his true self and his human self even the same thing these days?)

Jon came back to _consciousness_ on the floor of the safehouse, with Martin standing over him, and for a brief second things seemed alright, seemed as normal as they ever were, before he saw the terror in Martin’s eyes and remembered what he’d read out loud before passing out and knew (lower-case) that something had gone terribly wrong.

The details were still fuzzy in Jon’s mind, though, and as Jon struggled to put the pieces together, to wake up more fully and figure out exactly what kind of trouble he was in this time, he was only able to say a single word.

“ _Martin_.”

But... but it didn’t sound right, somehow. The word was clear enough, luckily, it wasn’t like he was trying to spit it out through a gagged mouth (which was a sensation Jon unfortunately knew all too well thanks to Nikola), but the tone was off. Jon was confused and curious and scared, but when he called out Martin’s name, none of that came through. Instead, his voice sounded... smug, smug and vaguely condescending, much closer to the sort of tone he would have used to dismiss Martin before Prentiss’ attack than the one he’d meant to adopt now.

“Jon?” Jon wasn’t sure how much of the uncertainty he heard in Martin’s voice just then was real and how much of it was just his mind projecting. Probably some of both there.

Jon cleared his throat and tried again.

“ _Martin_.”

It came out the same as before--exactly the same as before, actually, his tone and enunciation both identical to when he’d said Martin’s name before, as much so as if he’d recorded it before and simply played it back again instead of actually speaking anew.

An analogy that, when Jon examined it more closely, seemed entirely too on the nose.

“ _My god_.”

He said the words only partially because they were what he actually wanted to say; if Jon were free to speak his mind, his speech would probably be significantly less coherent right now, and filled with half-formed questions. But this would have to do at short notice, combining actual meaning with a way to test his current theory.

Sure enough, he was able to say those words just fine, just as he had... how long ago was it, now? Minutes, hours, an eternity ago? And with them came that same smug, self-congratulatory tone, one that almost made Jon want to punch _himself_ in the face for sounding like that. But it wasn’t really himself that he wanted to punch in the face at the moment, just as it hadn’t been himself, exactly, who had first said those words. It was his voice, sure, but the words themselves, the mind behind them, were not his own.

Jon opened his mouth to say _Fuck Jonah Magnus_ , but was far from surprised to find that the words refused to cross the gap between his mind and the world around him.

It was all starting to come together, now. It didn’t click, per se, just continued on the progression from lazy analogy to hunch to theory to something just shy of a dark certainty.

Why did nobody ever swear in the statements, goddammit?

Though that- that wasn’t _quite_ true, was it, there were one or two instances in there where-

And _then_ it clicked. Jon Knew, then, what he could and couldn’t say, the exact limits of his strange new vocabulary. (Or... not _new_ , really. None of these words were new to him. Perhaps he would never say anything new again.)

“Jon, are you alright?”

Even Knowing what he could say didn’t mean controlling his speech was easy, though. It was a little like trying to conduct a conversation by flipping through a dictionary, having to find just the right word in its pages every time a new one was needed.

“ _No. No, of course not._ ” The words were right, or close enough at any rate, but the tone was all wrong, and it wasn’t even Jon’s own voice this time, the voice and words of a now-dead man leaving his lips instead.

Jon laughed, then, and that at least sounded normal enough... well, for a certain definition of normal, at any rate. It sounded sharp and cold and full of fear, without a hint of humor to be found, and that wasn’t _normal_ for a laugh, no, but it was what Jon had intended at any rate, a sound that was still all his own.

“Jon, you’re, you’re scaring me a bit, something about your voice seems weird...” Oh, good, he noticed that much at least. “What’s going on?”

“ _I don’t know... and it makes me very afraid._ ” At least it was his voice again, now, not that of... well. Jon wanted to call Mike Crew a killer, a monster, but those weren’t exactly distinguishing features, were they? Martin probably didn’t even recognize the voice that Jon had adopted a moment ago; it’s not as if he’d had the chance to chat up Mike before Daisy killed him.

“Right. Alright. Well then, er... is, is there anything I can do to help?”

Jon laughed, and this time there was humor to it, or at least levity, despite the world having gone wrong, despite his voice no longer being entirely his own, because no matter what Martin was still _Martin_ , trying to help, putting Jon’s well-being above all else, even when the world was quite possibly falling to pieces around them.

“ _I am unsure if I will... be able to stand myself up again._ ” Between the words and the hand extended in Martin’s direction, Jon hoped that the instruction would be clear enough.

Evidently it was, as Martin took his hand, helping pull Jon off of the floor and back onto his feet. It took more effort than it should have, Jon thought, Martin grunting and breathing heavily by the end of it despite past jokes about how easy it was to pick Jon up, but it worked, though Martin’s whole body was shaking by the end of it. (Jon wasn’t sure whether said shaking was even entirely physical in nature, truth be told.)

Jon half-walked, half-stumbled his way forward.

“No, no, no--don’t, don’t go outside. It’s--it’s _real_ bad.”

Outside had never been Jon’s destination, however, though Martin seemed to believe otherwise. Jon didn’t want to go outside, to experience the horrors that had now been unleashed upon the world outside their cabin. He simply wanted to... Jon had to suppress a bout of hysterical laughter as it occurred to him that he simply wanted to _see_ what had happened, to _watch_ the chaos unfold, and wasn’t that all too fitting...

The view outside the nearest window was enough to confirm all of Jon’s worst suspicions. The world had been torn apart, all the fears unleashed upon it to wreak havoc, all because of what he’d just read out loud (all because of _him_ ).

“ _My god._ ” It felt wrong, somehow, using the words of the man who had orchestrated this apocalypse to describe it, but Jon didn’t have much in the way of alternatives at his disposal.

“I don’t know if it’s just _here_ , or-”

“ _No. No..._ ” Between trying to put the world’s destruction into words and trying to translate what words he could come up with into something said in the statements, Jon struggled to speak, though it didn’t show in his voice when he did manage to string a few more words together. “ _...the populated world... edged with a strange, creeping fear... far, far away..._ ”

“Is that Peter’s voice? Jon, don’t... just, please don’t.” Martin laughed briefly, though Jon could see that his eyes were filling with tears. “I, I think I’ve heard enough from him already, thanks.”

Jon nodded enthusiastically, went to apologize, realized that even a simple “I’m sorry” was beyond his reach now, settled for “ _I was an idiot._ ” instead.

“Don’t say _that_. You’re not an idiot for not thinking of it, it’s just...” Martin let out a long sigh. “Jon, I’m scared.”

“ _...fear can just become as routine as hunger... I felt every feeling... They overwhelmed me... my impact on the world... my_ failure _..._ ” Jon switched between different statements, different voices, desperate to find the words to explain what had happened, what the world had become and how it was all his own fault. The end result felt like almost as great a failure as what it was purporting to describe, but it was an attempt, at least. It would have to do.

Martin wrapped one arm around Jon’s shoulder; Jon briefly considered pushing it off because he was about the last person who deserved to be comforted now, when he was the one who had caused so much pain and suffering, but decided against it because that would hurt Martin’s feelings more than it would appease his own, and he couldn’t exactly explain his own thought process to Martin at the moment.

“You’re not a failure, Jon. No matter what this is, no matter what else happens, you’re not a failure.”

Jon laughed and shook his head and laughed some more, a laugh that kept threatening to turn into a sob as he looked out at the ruins of the world he had wrecked entirely.

“ _And with each act of glorious, hateful destruction, I felt my god’s love embrace me, consume me..._ ”

Jon pointed to the sky, to the giant eye that now engulfed it.

“ _It’s still there, still watching me._ ”

The laugh that kept threatening to turn into a sob finally did so after a long minute, and as it did the tears that had been building in Martin’s eyes began to flow, and the two men threw their arms around each other, holding one another for comfort as they cried over the loss of their world.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably going to write more within this AU, hence me starting a series for it. The next fic in the series will be less angsty, I promise.  
> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


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